The latest meeting of the Joint Multidisciplinary Expert Commission on Historical and Educational Issues between Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, which took place on June 4 and 5 in Skopje, concluded “in the usual manner – without results,” the Bulgarian members of the Commission told BTA.
The Commission members from North Macedonia refused to adopt a text of a recommendation – agreed in principle as early as June 2024 – regarding the presentation of the Ohrid Archdiocese in seventh-grade textbooks in North Macedonia.
On the second day of the meeting, the Bulgarian representatives familiarized their colleagues from North Macedonia with the text of the European Parliament’s report on North Macedonia’s progress towards EU membership, adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) on June 3, which directly pertains to the work of the Commission.
The compromise adopted by AFET, which was also reported by the media in North Macedonia, reads that the Joint Multidisciplinary Expert Commission on Historical and Educational Issues is strongly encouraged to achieve clear and tangible results. The texts must reflect the interpretation of historical facts and figures from the shared history of the two nations, based on objective, authentic, and evidence-based historical sources and documents, scientific interpretation, and historical records, as stipulated in the Second Protocol to the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighborliness with Bulgaria.
The next Commission meeting will be held in September in Sofia.
The Joint Multidisciplinary Expert Commission on Historical and Educational Issues was established as a result of the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighborliness between Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, signed on August 1, 2017. To date, the Commission has adopted, in 2019, recommendations for the joint commemoration of five historical figures as well as recommendations for changes to history textbooks for sixth grade in North Macedonia and fifth grade in Bulgaria.
/DS/